FROM PEDAGOGY TO ACTIVISM

Abstract

Accepted as a pro-woman organisation, Singapore's longest established women's association, the Association for Women's Action and Research (AWARE), has operated for 25 years under the watchful eye of the authorities in Singapore. Despite its systematic interventions on behalf of women, it never enjoyed a high national profile. In March 2009, however, all this changed. A right wing religious group staged a take-over and brought AWARE to the attention of the nation. This article details how a group of current and past students of our feminism module at the National University of Singapore moved from classroom learning to spontaneous active response when AWARE faced this challenge.

Notes

1. There is at least one other women's group, Singapore Association of Women's Lawyers (SAWL) that was established earlier than AWARE, in 1974.

2. One year after the ‘AWARE saga’, in May 2010, the newly elected President Dana Lam spoke to TOC, ‘The Online Citizen’, and there she stated that she does ‘not expect all the new members to continue to have an active interest in AWARE’, thus indicating that actual membership number does not equate to active participation. (see Wong 2010).

3. For a sample yearly report of AWARE's activities, please see Awareness Journal, Vol. 12, November 2005.

4. Before the General Election in mid-May of 2011, Singaporeans have been characterised as apathetic, having little or no interest in politics, preferring to leave such matters of governance to the dominant ruling party, the People's Action Party (or PAP) that has long been associated with Singapore's development and growth. The following two online entries provide a picture of a shift before and after the May election. A 22 October 2009, the entry by Ivan Chan featured on the locally popular online platform The Online Citizen, declared ‘Singaporean youths are apathetic about Singapore's future’ (Chan 2009) at http://theonlinecitizen.com/2009/10/singaporean-youths-are-apathetic-about-singapore%e2%80%99s-future/ (accessed 10 August 2012). The second, entitled ‘Apathetic? Not Singaporean youth’ (Tan, Chung and Zhang) and published on 27 May 2011 in the online version of the mainstream papers, The Straits Times, details a change in the political attitudes of youth. Whether increased online participation through Blogs, Twitter and Facebook is a good indication of increased political awareness is debatable, but the second article, in particular, makes the claim that the study conducted by Singapore's Institute of Policy Studies allows for the conclusion that youths today are no longer as disengaged as previously thought.

5. Singapore's population stands at over five million people, with about 74% Chinese, 13% Malays, 9% Indians and 3% classified as ‘Other’. This multi-ethnic composition is further made complex by a multi-religious and multi-lingual affiliation, with no one religion commanding a clear majority, and with English as one of four, but a dominant, official language in the island state. See http://www.edb.gov.sg/edb/sg/en_uk/index/why_singapore/singapore_facts_and_figures.html (accessed 24 July 2012)

6. In 2011, Singapore's literacy rate is put at 96.1% and approximately 70% of Singaporeans are classified as middle class. http://www.edb.gov.sg/edb/sg/en_uk/index/why_singapore/singapore_facts_and_figures.html (accessed 24 July 2012)

7. Singapore has often been characterised as modern on the surface, but conservative at its core. To some extent, this is still true and, as the AWARE saga illustrates, conservative ideological strains came to the fore when issues of (homo) sexuality surfaced to become a crucial dimension in the conflict.

8. From Third World to First is also the title of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's book (Lee 2000).

9. Singapore is said to have one of the highest per capita GDP in the world, making it among the most affluent societies in Asia. See http://www.aneki.com/asia_richest.html (accessed 24 July 2012).

10. This paraphrase of Freireian thought is accessed from John Lyons analysis of Freire's ideas (J. Lyons 2009).

11. We place this term in quotes simply because one-third of our students on this course are male, but this term conveys the camaraderie nurtured and experienced in our classroom very well.

12. The term ‘Eurasian’ in Singapore refers to someone who is a descendant of European and Asian parents. See ‘Eurasians in Singapore’ at http://www.eurasians.org.sg/about/eurasians-in-singapore/ (accessed 23 July 2012).

13. When the new executive council was elected into office on 28 March, the elected President was Claire Nazar who, due to ‘differences in decision to remove key subcommittee members and her disapproval of [the new executive council's] ‘stormtrooper’ tactics’ stepped down after 11 days in office. There followed the ushering of a new president, Josie Lau, on 15 April who led the fight over who has the right to lead AWARE. See http://www.divaasia.com/article/3206 (accessed 12 July 2010).

14. AWARE is party to a joint civil society project to work on a national plan of action against trafficking. See http://www.aware.org.sg/2012/04/joint-civil-society-statement-in-response-to-the-national-plan-of-action-against-trafficking-in-persons/ (accessed 10 August 2012).

15. A quick ‘google’ of the term ‘nanny state’ shows references made to Singapore in this way. Two examples can be found in a Wikipedia entry (2012) and a New York Times article (Arnold 2006).

16. In fact, as noted earlier in the article, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stated that the government was concerned about the AWARE saga not because it was concerned about who leads AWARE but only because the conflict revealed undertones of religious intolerance (see Straits Times, 17 August 2009, B2).

17. The Combahee River Collective was formed by a group of Black feminists in 1974 and operated until about 1980. These feminists believed that they needed to address immediate problems that concerned oppression, involving not only gender but race, class and sexuality. They believed that these systems of oppression were all interlocked under patriarchy and needed to be confronted as a whole.